Shaun "Merthsoft" McFall and I are happy to present CALCnet Chat! v1.0, an IM, conferencing, and IRC program for TI graphing calculators. It takes advantages of the powerful CALCnet 2.2 networking protocol for TI graphing calculators and the Doors CS GUI API to offer a small yet powerful program. This 2KB program lets you chat with one, one dozen, or one thousand other users at once over CALCnet or globalCALCnet. It has already been used for conversations over 300 miles using gCn, demonstrating its versatility and power. With Chat!, you can chat over a simple unit-to-unit I/O cable for two calculators, or an only slightly more complex conglomeration of link cables for more than two. You can set (or change) your username and see a list of other users on the network. With globalCALCnet (gCn), Chat! can be linked into Internet Relay Chat (IRC), so that your TI-83+ or TI-84+ can chat on the internet. Download and enjoy! Doors CS 7.1.1 or higher required.

Cheers. Shaun and I are going to mention this program to the ticalc.org staff as something interesting at some point, and also my cool parts came, so I'm experimenting with USB HID bitbanging as we speak. Eight resistors, three capacitors, a crystal, an Atmega382p, and a button to make a CALCnet bridge? I hope so.

When you say that it needs an Arduino to program it, does that only mean the programmer (like, the thing that sends the program over USB) or do we need an actual Arduino? Other than that, I'm happy the cost is still low, and good luck on getting USB to work

When you say that it needs an Arduino to program it, does that only mean the programmer (like, the thing that sends the program over USB) or do we need an actual Arduino? Other than that, I'm happy the cost is still low, and good luck on getting USB to work

Thanks, I need to find somewhere to get a pair of 3.6V Zener diodes and a pair of 68 ohm resistors to be able to properly test, because the D-/D+ lines of USB are actually around 3.3-3.6V, not 5V as I had previously thought. I mean that you need to put the Atmega/AVR chip in the Arduino board, use the Arduino board to program the chip, then pull it out and use it. If you have an AVR programmer, great, but I tend to think more people have Arduino boards than AVR programmers.

Even though I'm generally afraid of microcontrollers, I'm contemplating getting the Arduino just to try this out. It sounds really revolutionary and awesome Kerm! Congrats on all your work amounting to this! Now, I just have to make myself a I/O cable, which didn't come with my calc, to use this, and I'll try it out and put it on my calc. (and the stupid radio shack 3/32" plug doesn't fit into the confined space on my 84. I'll have to order that.)

Even though I'm generally afraid of microcontrollers, I'm contemplating getting the Arduino just to try this out. It sounds really revolutionary and awesome Kerm! Congrats on all your work amounting to this! Now, I just have to make myself a I/O cable, which didn't come with my calc, to use this, and I'll try it out and put it on my calc. (and the stupid radio shack 3/32" plug doesn't fit into the confined space on my 84. I'll have to order that.)

You can shave down the connector to fit if you're very careful, but it can be a big pain. TIFreak8x found cheap 2.5mm stereo sockets at Futurelec, but that still requires you have an I/O cable.

There's no good way to prevent that; other people won't see the changes. I could put an invisible non-hotspot over the text editing area, but I don't see a terrible need for it. On the other hand, I think I've accidentally clicked in the text area before, which pauses reception of new messages. I suppose it would be worth it if there were other changes or bugfixes being added as well.

Oh, ok, I just thought that you can mabe just make that nothing happens when you press [2nd] in the chat-field.

Yup, I think that would be a good idea, but I'm slightly too lazy to release a whole new version just for that one change. I'd rather find some other changes as well that I could roll into the same release.

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